US Open: Seeds in troubles on Tuesday!
On the contrary, the second day of the last Grand Slam of the season, the US Open, offered a few upsets and more interesting matches than the first one. Another sixteen seeded players were in action. Let’s look at how they progressed.
First on Arthur Ashe Stadium was #4 seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia who is currently struggling to get into a form she had when she was world number one. Her opponent was Romanian Simona Halep, a talented and upcoming youngster. The Serbian started very well with two early breaks and had no problems to win the first set 64, but her unforced errors counter was pretty high. The second set was dictated by Halep. Jankovic made even more unforced errors in the second set so the Romanian battled back to tie the set count to 1-1. The final set was very dramatic. Halep was the better player most of the set but failed to serve out the match at 5-4 in the final set. Jankovic showed her experience and turned around the score to 75 in her favour, so she advanced to the second round.
Russian Maria Sharapova, one of the contenders for the title, had a very tough first round draw. She had to play Jarmila Groth of Australia who shined at Wimbledon this year and almost beat Venus Williams there. Groth fulfilled predictions and gave former world number one a tough match. The Australian won the first set 64. But since that, Sharapova was on fire and dictated the play, she won a battle for the second set, 63, and final set was even easier for her. Sharapova won 46 63 61.
Last match on Arthur Ash Stadium featured the top seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark. The Dane faced home wildcard Chelsey Gullickson. No troubles for the top seed who continues in a great form and winning streak. Wozniacki won 61 61. Russian Vera Zvonareva, this year’s surprising Wimbledon finalist, had no problems against Slovak qualifier Zuzana Kucova in the first round and cruised into the second round after a 62 61 win.
No doubts that the biggest upset of all first round matches is a loss of Na Li of China, seed number 8. The Chinese started very well, won the first set easily 62. But her inconsistency and great play by her opponent, Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine, resulted in a 62 46 26 loss in the first round. Both players are last year’s quarterfinalists. Younger of Bondarenkos sisters managed it better mentally. Another upset happenned later, also on Louis Armstrong Stadium, where German Andrea Petkovic beat Nadia Petrova 62 46 76(4) in a huge battle. It’s definitely not that big upset as the loss of Na Li, but still Petkovic wasn’t in any big form, while Petrova reached the final in New Haven last week. Another seed who failed was Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic who lost to a qualifier Tamira Paszek of Austria 26 75 62 after being break up in the second set.
